Maggie Davidson

English 1201

October 19th, 2020

Samantha Bell

Do video games cause violence?

When you first think of video games what comes to mind? Is it joy, fun, or violence?

Why do you think you feel that way about video games? Another question is do you think that

video games often lead to acts of violence? Many researchers have studied the effects that

violent video games have on teens. There have been many conclusions on this question but they

all have different answers.

The gaming industry easily went from being nothing to making more money than the

movie and television industry. When gaming was first introduced in the nineteen seventy’s

people were skeptical at first. It was something new and all though the seventies had all kinds of

new inventions it was still rejected. However, over the course of many years video games have

become a staple in many of the United States households. (Video Games) The expansion of

video games has expanded so much over the years. People are now gaining the ability to create a

career playing video games through technology created. (Dargonaki) (Performing gender on

Twitch. TV) This is a really big deal because this gives the opportunity to create more jobs.

Although there are a lot of positives to having video games around there are also negatives.

Nationalist are using the stereotype that surrounds gaming for their benefit. They’re preying on

these young kids to get them to spread their agenda of hate.

 While gaming is a big industry no one talks about it a lot of the time it's not as outspoken

as the movie or television industry. They’re creating their own indie games to spread their

message of hate. (Condis) (From Fortnite to Alt-Right) No one can do anything about this

because like I said earlier no one talks about it. When they hear that someone that did something

horrible let's say the parkland shooter. The minute that politicians heard that he played “violent”

video games they blamed all games in general.

The question of if violent video games causes violence have been around since the

beginning. This being said many researchers have done the correct research and have come up

with conclusions. Tobias mentions in his article that playing violent video games alters one's

perception of aggressive behavior. (Tobias) (Intense acts of violence during video game play)

This is an interesting theory because this would explain why a lot of people that play video

games do not feel that they’re violent. People who believe this a lot of times will likely to be

more violent. I mentioned earlier that people make a career off of streaming on a service called

Twitch. There is a popular streamer on their named Summit and he is known for raging. A

popular video of his is a video of him smashing his computer monitor and keyboard. He later

makes jokes about it thinking that his behavior is okay just as long as he didn’t physically hurt

anyone.

Doing this research is important for help people know what they’re getting into before

they start playing video games. A research done showed that the hypothesis that violent video

games would increase aggression was not supported in a study done by Randy McCarthy. He

measured the level of aggression by asking participants to play a violent video game then stick

pins in a voodoo doll. He found that the number never changed based on if they play the video
game or not. (McCarthy) It is important to have this research so that we have different studies to

compare and contrast when this topic comes up in the future.

Although, some research has proven that playing violent video games does increase the

level of aggression that people may feel. There have been other studies that show that there is no

link between the two. As the world of technology keeps getting bigger and better it is important

to have these past conclusions so that we may able to do more research in the future.
 Works Cited

Condis, Megan. “From Fortnite to Alt-Right.” New York Times, vol. 168, no. 58280, 28 Mar.

2019, p. A27. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=a9h&AN=135585817&site=ehost-live.

Dargonaki, Stavroula. “Performing Gender on Twitch.Tv: Gendered Playbour through Butlerian

Theory.” International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics, vol. 14, no. 1, Mar. 2018,

pp. 103–110. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1386/macp.14.1.103_7.

Greitemeyer, Tobias. “Intense Acts of Violence during Video Game Play Make Daily Life

Aggression Appear Innocuous: A New Mechanism Why Violent Video Games Increase

Aggression.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Academic Press, 13 Sept. 2013,

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103113001595.

McCarthy, Randy J., et al. “Does Playing Video Games with Violent Content Temporarily

Increase Aggressive Inclinations? A Pre-Registered Experimental Study.” Journal of

Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 67, Nov. 2016, pp. 13–19. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2015.10.009.

"Video Games." Gale Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2019. Gale In Context:

Opposing Viewpoints, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/PC3010999329/OVIC?

u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=17f77e1e. Accessed 19 Oct. 2020.

Summit gamer rages on stream (punches monitor)